St. Louis County Communications Department Recommends Transition to ARMER
The St. Louis County Communications Department has recommended that the county begin a "phased" approach to a full transition to the State of Minnesota's ARMER radio system (800 MHZ trunking). The recommendation, if adopted by the St. Louis County Board, will impact all public safety agencies in the county including law enforcement, EMS, fire and first responder organizations. The recommendation was made on October 26 at a county board workshop held at the county's emergency operations center (EOC) in Pike Lake, north of Duluth.
For the last several years, the county communications department had been moving to upgrade the county's current VHF law enforcement and Fire/EMS radio network to narrowband VHF in order to comply with a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulation which takes effect in January 2013. By that January date, all radio users would have to be using narrowband equipment. In making his department's recommendation to the county board, Supervising Deputy Marcus Bruning, head of the St. Louis County Communications Department, expressed concern that the VHF narrowband system would leave the county with a "stranded solution" since another FCC regulation coming in the future would also require another narrowband upgrade for the county and its users. In essence, the county and its 185 user agencies would end up upgrading and paying for the VHF system twice. Bruning also presented information showing that by going to the ARMER system, the county would not have to maintain its large and costly public safety radio system, which includes towers and transmitting equipment. In addition, the move to ARMER would allow "seamless" radio communications throughout the county with over 95% coverage for mobile and portable radios, something that the present VHF system can't provide and perhaps could not be provided by going to VHF narrowband.
While the cost figures for transitioning to ARMER are not exact, the price tag ranges from $6 million to $17 million. Bruning presented several options to the county commissioners. Those plans ranged from having law enforcement alone transitioning to ARMER and keeping fire and EMS on VHF to having all county agencies, including public works on the system. For having all law enforcement, fire, EMS and first responders on ARMER, the cost is put around $12 million. The option of having just law enforcement go to ARMER and keeping fire and EMS on VHF was put around $6 million. Bruning pointed out that the ARMER alone cost figures include bringing all user agencies on to the system. For fire and EMS users, the communications department is proposing to purchase "low tier" mobile and portable ARMER radios. Bruning repeatedly emphasized that the communications department is very concerned about not leaving the small user agencies behind in its future radio plans. He also explained that the ARMER system does not allow for paging and that is something the county will have to provide.
The final decision on the county's radio system is now in the hands of the county board. During the meeting, county commissioners expressed concern about the price of transitioning to the ARMER system and called upon the State of Minnesota to come forth with additional funding to make it occur.
Scott Wiggins, who represents ARMER, explained that a number of funding options are available including sales tax and bonding exemptions. County Administrator Kevin Gray said that his staff would work with Bruning and his team to look at more specific operational and funding options which would be presented to county commissioners. With the FCC narrowband deadline looming and some groups already with federal funding, the county board will need to make a decision fairly soon. There are indications that the final decision could come next month(November) during one of the county board's regular meetings.